jimmarchi1's Reviews

at last its mine

I'm over the moon for my prophet 600 right now. My unit has seen some serious road time and has been hacked into at least twice, but one of the hacks was for the GliGli mod which corrects the knob resolution to eliminate stepping, makes the envelopes a lot snappier and adds some prophet5 modulation features via the multi encoder and embrane buttons. Its a great upgrade and it made me open to buying a synth that has always gotten mixed reviews. What the prophet lacks (noise gen, what?) it makes up for in sound quality. The midrange is superlative on this board and the cranked resonance on the filter is the stuff of legend. Its a little more nasal than a prophet 5, but can cop the whole prophet thing better than a the new prophet 6. Its more lush and sits in the mix better. Cuts where it should, never where it shouldn't.

meh

big on features, low on sound quality. Fun to play with and its free. I wouldn't use it in a finished song. Filter sounds like dog farts.

not terrible

these old amp models hold up okay. Amp farm uses the same simulations as the early pods but they use your converters and processor if you have nice stuff going into your computer these can sound pretty decent versus a pre-HD pod.... also excellent sources other than guitar.

shhhh

if you know about this thing don't tell anyone...

meh

I have a love hate relationship with the quadraverb. Its not as outright bad to my ear as the midiverbs. I remember the first unit I owned I saved all these patches and called them things like "5 man anal BBQ"

everyone needs a rat

not quite as buttery a my 80s rat. but if this is what you can get? worth it

the mother of FM

I started my 'pro' synth life on dx7 mk2 and they're great synths.... but the mk1 has a hazy, warm, swampy goodness... you just wanna snuggle up with this synth. Beware the membrane buttons which go south. I finally let go of my IIFD after having a couple mk1s come into my life. I should play the dx7 more but I keep getting sidetracked by analogs and weirdies like the SY35

nothing quite like it

You could be forgiven for assuming that the Yamaha SY35 sits somewhere between the SY22 and SY77/99 in the 90s Yami range. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the voice architecture is firmly in the SY AWM/FM style, this synth was masterminded by none other than Dave Smith during his time advising Yamaha and Korg when they were the same company. It shres a decent digital fitler with the big boy proto-workstation SYs and ahs their more refined, hifi 16 bit sound, so none of the cool 22 grit from the sampled waveforms. Its multitimbral like the big boys. Butin exchange for the grit you get a prophet VS joystick allowing you to blend timbres in real time, vector style. The 22 does this, but not as well and its not the 22's forte. The 25 really steps up the game. Think wavestation but 50% DX100. There are some excellent youtube vids that fully show off the unique sound of this digital pad monster. Because the 35 is little understood these days it can be had for peanuts on ebay and reverb. Editing via the front panel is a chore, but if you have a windows device there's an excellent graphical midi editor so you can create basic patches to use live. The only drawback to this type of machine is that to thoroughly enjoy the wonders of vector synthesis you need a free hand for the joystick. As a guy who will often be playing multiple keyboards this is a bummer relegating the synth's performance usage to breakdown and fill sections or passages where my bandmates are center stage. That said, in a studio environment I think this synth is one of the finest digital synths of the era... of any era. Its a gamechanger like the DX7, Prophet VS, D5 and wavestation and like all those boards its really a unique piece of kit, dripping in personality and potential. I am, of course, a well known Yamaha fanboy and this is very much a clean Yamaha sound. If that's not for you? Skip the SY35. otherwise? Grab 'em before people realize what a beast this thing is.

unique enough for Devo

It looks like an Odyssey with a familiar, though less powerful signal flow. But under the hood this thing was made by total nonmusicians from a pure engineering perspective using the then-new IC opamps of the day for EVERYTHING and this gives it a unique sound. Its hard to describe but its hon the inharmonic side of the spectrum with a metallic, bell like quality even when setup to make traditional moog/arp type patches. One of these is in the collection of my best friend at our studio space. I think it would benefit from servicing. One we get around to it I have no doubt I will use the heck out of it because no other subtractive sounds like it. Its completely itself. Built like a tank, I'm sure with regular maintenance you will never have an issue with this synth. Quality 70s USA craftsmanship. You see EML gear working all the time because it was made to survive a war.

a really great 70s style string machine/mono synth

My friend owns one of these and its in our south philly studio. [Its now mine and is in my home studio] This is worth purchasing for the classic divide-down string section alone. You can get yamaha's version of those string machine tones and with a few fader tweaks go into other turf with the polysynth section (it's really paraphonic but they call it a polysynth). The chorus is lush but subtle, i thought it w as s noisy but the noise wss coming from a dirty pot. The synth is capable of doing the string/synth parts to Steely Dan's "Peg" with aplomb~! Also included is a cheeze ball FM organ. Ours is not working but its nothing to write hoe about on working units though its can do a passable organ in a pinch if you la on the chorus to simulate a leslie. We have never missed this section though. As with all Yamaha gear the keybed is first rate, springy organ action.... this thing weighs a ton. Built to last the ages. Shockingly stable tuning. Worth purchasing. One of the last of the great 'string synths'.

almost great

My best friend is Mr Proteus, he owns gobs of these modules and the yellow keyboard. I attempted to use the planet earth in my live rig but the menu diving proved to be an exercise in futility for the way I want to create sounds on the fly. I also had some issues getting it to talk to my other MIDI equipment. Probably user error, but the tiny display is frustrating for me. A powerful little machine for any studio but if I got frustrated with it most people will. I can patiently program a DX7 from the init patch using only the front panel.... this was a bigger headache and the payoff isn't worth the effort most of the time. If you want a tweakable rompler then go for it. The PE version has some organic 'world'samples that can be interesting when treated with the z-planes and can add unusual textures to a more straight ahead collection of synths.

WAZA? THISZA THE JAMZA!

holy grail of digital choruses reproducing the pedal version in addition to getting darned close to the old rack unit I foolishly sold many years ago. My dave smith Mopho's best friend taking the stereo field and lushness to new heights as well as softening the rough edges of the CEM chips admirably considering this is NOT analog :-)

after spending some time with this guy...

I really love it. I don't miss the extra sequencer functionality of the bass bot and the sound to my ear is good if not spot on. TB303s vary anyway. It distorts better than the bassbot with the inbuilt ds1 or a stomp or even a plugin. Knobs are not too stiff or too loose. Slide and accent feel good to my ears. Clock sync is easy to set and works great from all 3 sources. Even takes start/stop messages well over USB from a DAW. I really see myself selling my bassbot and xoxbox and getting a few more of these. the form factor is traditional like the bassbot mk1 I have so I'll actually be saving space as well as money. I don't think I'll sell my freebass as it fits in a rack and has blendable saw and square... and has shit resale. I'll do a little more comparison, but my son and I made a cool little acid loop last night layering 2 tracks of TD3 (I did the 1st pass, he did the 2nd) and its working for me. My unit's distortion is not terribly noisy at full gain, although the whole unit has a smidge of self-noise. If I recall that's true of originals though.... the self noise is a smidge higher than the bassbot and xox, but you have to really listen for it. More apparent on headphones with the td3 soloed. At less than the price of a traditional 'dinner and a movie' date? Uli's 303 clone is a no-brainer. If you just want the classic in the traditional form factor with no bells and whistles apart from MIDI, CV/gate outs, analog clock in and a DS1 then this is for you. Roland won't make another one so hats of to Behringer for making a cheap little 303 that does the business well enough for most people's needs. Nothing against the TB3 and TB03 roland, but you went digital and added features, inflated the price beyond plugin pricing.... meh. Is it dead on? I dunno, I don't have access to a 303 anymore, but its great in its own right and versus the xox/bassbot/roland buy in its a no-brainer if you wanna do some acid. And yes, I'm sure the Avalon is spot on, but its more than 10 times the cost and in the mix you'll never care.

My only concern is build quality, but its not like cyclone didn't resort to SMDs and cheap pots so in the affordable clone game this is still the clear winner. If it dies I can afford another one noproblem.

perfect sound engine, but only if you have a 303 sequencer, which means you don't technically need the MAM because 303 sequencers come in 303s and clones!

The freebass sounds like a 303.... as long as you already have a 303 sequencer to drive it (or a lot of patience with your DAW's sequencer, FLstudio works best). If you just play it or run it from a different sequencer without the unique glide/accent its just a very limited monosynth... which is why resale on these is so darn low these days. But they're worth getting for various reasons. For me the idea is to be able to double a 303 clone with the sequencer and pan them out and then tweak different on each side playing the same pattern... plus when I got this it was WAY cheaper than a x0x or bassbot. Now with Behringer's TD3 (assuming the one I ordered has that sound and sequencer feel, more on that when it arrives) it seems silly. But Its rackmountable making it handy and very studio friendly versus the traditional module that requires a decent amount of desk space... I forgot I owned this for awhile but now that I'm moved into a studio space with my best friend and (some of) my synthesizers are permanently set up for live performance I'm thinking of adding this guy to my big rack along with the BassStation Rack and Behri Neutron. But if you don't have the sequencer I would recommend the bass station rack or super bass station any day in 1ru, knob/function monos on the cheap for your studio. The fitler on this is generally more pleasing and rubbery, but in every other conceivable way its less useful and the bass station ash that wasp filter which is a sound all its own. You're looking at similar pricing for BSR and this and more BSRs are common, this is not.... and if you want elgit 303 there's cyclone, x0x and Uli's clone.... which have solid 303 style sequencers, which you're going to want because that's at least half the sound.

Gerat when it came out, still great today!

the original 1LFO/2env bass station in a convenient knob-per-function rack. MIDI and CV/gate connectivity.... I ahd one of these when it came out. Now it can be had for about $200 on ebay so I got another one. Sure there's a similar engine in my Monostation, sure I had a BSII. But those are bulky and take up a lot of space so I gave BS2 to a worthy young musician in my family, kept the circuit and got this 1ru monstuh for dueling Chris Hugget, wasp filter goodness. Which leaves me with 3 more rack units in my table top rack in the studio.... Oberkorn 3 sequencer? Modal Argon rack? But seriously, do yourself a favor and embrace the minimal feature set of the original bass station, get a rack unit. You'll use the hell out of it and it'll pay for itself in no time at all.

I want to love this synthesizer...

I really want to love it.... but I can't. I sent this synth BACK to the retailer. Yup. I spent a week with it and found its sound & features to be fantastic but f you're going to get the keyboard version thinking "live performance instrument" think again. Its so deep with such a limited interface that you need to spend a long time creating patches. They're going to be killer, unique patches. This is the mother of all digital engines, covering every type of synthesis you can imagine with huge multitibrality for layered soundscapes. That said, its a preset machine or studio piece. I ight get the module version in the future, but I wanted something more immediate from the keyboard. I perform live with friends a lot and I need to be to imagine a patch, throw it up from an initialized state, and then be able to screw with it while playing. This is not the modern digital synth for that. On top of its interface issues, the engine can get over the top and do things you don't really want. it can 'freak out' on you so to speak. What else can I say? this is a hugely powerful engine. Just amazing. But its hard to take advantage of while playing and you wind up with a very expensive rompler. Get the module. I'd give that 5 stars as its purpose is clear, a studio sound design swiss army knife. Add a keyboard without adding any functionality to the interface and I'm left flat. What I DO like? the display is great, easy tor ead, informative text/graphics.... myriad of options. very cool waveforms/tables n addition to the usual stuff... COMB FILTER.... like I said, I'm thinking about a module. I think you can make the stereoping synth controller command this thing with a bunch more knob per function control of bread and butter parameters one might need, but for this price I shouldn't have to resort to a 3rd party controller like that. This is an expensive device new.

the wekest digital synth I've ever played... DO NOT BUY THIS

patch editing is not only complicated, but once you sort out the arcane menu diving, the amount of parameters at your disposal to edit is sorely limited. I bumped into one of these ina store yesterday and invested some real time into learning it. The price was so low I thought I might purchase it.... once I had the whole system figured out and felt comfortable I felt like it was basically just a bunch of sampled sounds you can layer up with a few envelopes and LFOs. The 'filter' is a glorified tone control with an envelope. It has some cheesy 80s drum sounds though and they're kinda cute....

an udnerrated transitional synth in the korg line....

Scored at a guitar center for very, very cheap. These are overshadowed by the more capable DW8000 but overall have THAT korg hybrid sound. If you don't need more LFOs and waveshapes this will cover a lot of stuff. Not a good FIRST poly, but a great adjunct to a big rig that's mostly analog and pure digital because it splits the difference beautifully. Not wavetables, but just wave memory. Like a less evolved ESQ1 (right down to the extra envelope stages), but also simpler to dial up a nice pad. This has more aliasing on the waveshapes but is at the same time warmer sounding for some reason. I want to think both synths feature Curtis chip filters, but maybe not as the filters sound quite different to me. Both are bright but the korg is less aggressive and SCI-ish making it capable of some very Japanese pad and key sounds that can get downright juno-ey, but that's not its main thing in my opinion. Mine needs a power cable repair. Time to warm up the soldering iron.

a really unique little gadget

in sund and funcrionality the microfreak is a law unto itself. It has a really great sound. Arturia's steiner parker filter really mates well with digital oscillators & wavetables. All that metallic klang that turns me off on the brutes makes sense here. That said I couldn't bond with the touch plates. I'm just not buchla enough I guess.... the deeper programming is a bit cumbersome too. I already have enough trouble getting my microvolt to obey me using the internal sequencer. A really neat synth, but I could've used a rack version if they weren't giving me a legit keybed and knob per function. My space is getting limited. Think I'll get a modal Argon8M.

the penultimate midi patchbay and USB interface

If you use MIDI and you perform live with multiple controllers and sequencers and various synths, samplers etc? You need this. Gotta distribute clock? bang, this does it. No fuss. Its so plug and play, even sending the midi data to a computer via USB, it just works instantly! Why did they discontinue it? WHY, ROLAND, WHY?!